Despite delays, Yucca director says project is alive and well

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, March 10, 2005 | 11:14 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Despite critics recently sounding a death knell for Yucca Mountain, the nuclear waste repository program is alive and well, the acting Yucca manager told Congress this morning.

"I believe we are better situated today than we have ever been to move forward with this program," Theodore Garrish, deputy director of the Energy Department's Yucca program, said at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing.

Garrish is standing in as the person in charge of the Yucca Mountain program in the wake of Margaret Chu's resignation from the Yucca director position.

In testimony Garrish delivered a rosy portrait of the program, adding that Bush administration support remains strong.

"We are poised to make significant progress in the coming years," he said.

After the hearing, Garrish acknowledged that two program hurdles made it impossible to say exactly when Yucca might open. That depends on when the Environmental Protection Agency releases a revised radiation standard, and on Congress delivering Yucca budget requests, Garrish said.

"I don't know what the end date is because of those two issues," Garrish told reporters.

Chu had said the underground repository could be completed by 2012. Garrish called that the "earliest" possible date. Project critics and some insiders have said 2015 or 2017 is more realistic.

Garrish said the department still aims to have its application for a license to construct Yucca completed by the end of this year, although the department may not actually submit it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by then.

The planned $57.5 billion program has been beset by delays and budget setbacks since Congress chose the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a member of the appropriations panel with jurisdiction over Yucca, today ticked off a short list of program setbacks, including a July federal court ruling that threw out the EPA's 10,000-year radiation standard, and an Energy Department delay in filing Yucca documents on a public computer database.

"Last year was really a bad year for Yucca Mountain," said Reid, who annually works to slash funding for Yucca.

Garrish said the department had submitted roughly 1 million documents, roughly 5 million pages, to the License Support Network database. The department aims to post another 3.7 million documents, which are under review, by mid-summer.

"All told, the license application process is going well," Garrish told the panel.

Panel chairman Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., asked Garrish if the Energy Department's $651 million request for Yucca in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 was sufficient. Garrish responded that it was.

But Garrish in his testimony emphasized that the department still aims to lean on Congress to give it more direct access to a national nuclear waste fund, free from the constraints of annual budget limits set by Congress. The program will need "significantly increased funding" in the 2007 fiscal year and beyond, Garrish said in prepared written testimony.

"Historic appropriations will not get this job done," Garrish told reporters. "Where you need the money is in the construction."

Next year the department needs money to respond to NRC reviews of the license application, Garrish said. The department's goals for 2006 include fabricating prototype waste containers; procuring some equipment for Yucca construction; and completing a revised work plan, cost estimate and schedule, he said.

The department this year aims to complete the license application and complete a draft environmental impact report for the Nevada rail line that would be used to ship waste to Yucca.

Of most immediate concern to program managers is how the department's license application will mesh with the new radiation standard, which the EPA could release this spring. The department's license application aims to demonstrate to the NRC that Yucca can meet the court-rejected 10,000-year standard.

Energy Department and EPA officials are not having a behind-the-scenes dialogue about the revised standard, Garrish said. The department has merely given technical data to the EPA, he said. He dismissed Nevada officials who claim the two agencies are legally, but inappropriately, communicating about the revised standard without Nevada participation.

"This is totally EPA's issue," Garrish said. "They have to decide the standard, not us."